Posts in Category: General

TWINNING AT POZIERES
I must say it was a proud moment for me as I stood beside the Mayor of Pozieres, Bernard Delattre, to witness the signing of the twinning arrangement between Pozieres and the northern Sydney municipality of Ku-ring-gai.... read more

BATTLE OF POZIERES COMMEMORATIVE CHURCH SERVICE
This Sunday, 3rd August, there will be the Battle of Pozieres Commemorative Church Service at St John’s Anglican Church in Gordon. This is a special service to commemorate the tragic loss of... read more

I left Paris at 8am, hit the Perhiperque, the Paris ring road and headed north up the A1. A stop in Epernay to visit the Mercier champagne house then on to our first stop, Mont St Quentin – a very special place in Australian military history.

THAT TINY INCIDENT AT SARAJEVO
It’s amazing to think that one hundred years ago today – the 28th June 1914, the heir to the Austrian Hapsburg throne was murdered in a botched and disorganised assassination attempt in this provincial Bosnia... read more

My journey began in Istanbul and after a five hour bus trip, arrived at the Kum Hotel near Eceabat, the closest accommodation to the battlefields. The party was eager and enthusiastic as none, apart from the tour leader Mat McLachlan, having ever been to Gallipoli before.

It all goes back to the massive German offensive of March-April 1918. At the time, the German Army had recently been boosted by 50 Divisions from the Eastern Front with the collapse of Russia and keen to strike before the growing impact of American troops then arriving in Europe. The Germans struck along the British line across a wide front of 64 kilometres (40 miles)between Arras and St Quentin on the 21st March 1918 in an operation code named Michael.

There seems various reasons for this, Anzac Day and indeed remembrance generally, has had a welcome resurgence and interest. Some say it takes five generations to get over a war and perhaps it is just now that interest and commemoration can embrace the terrible loss of the Great War....

To be honest, yes, it is a frustrating and often demoralising time and process, but very necessary and well understood by authors. In my last book, The Boy Colonel published in early August this year (2013), the following change was made.